


Clarity in the Fog

by theforgottenpromises



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, POV First Person, Swan Queen Supernova, henry's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-21 03:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11935485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theforgottenpromises/pseuds/theforgottenpromises
Summary: I watch Mom’s hand extend as if it has a life of its own. Ready to graze a shoulder, touch an arm. But at the last moment she changes her mind and lets it fall. She remembered the last time she tried that and I wince as I do too. Ma doesn’t always respond well to unexpected touch anymore. Not even when it’s Mom’s hand.“Emma,” Mom softly says.--- Emma returns after leaving with Hook, but a spell gone wrong takes her away again. Her memory gets altered and it becomes nearly impossible to tell what's real and what isn't. Will they ever get her back? Henry's POV





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's been quite the challenge to take on Henry's POV and even more so to write in first person. And yes, I know that's a no-no in fanfiction, but unfortunately I had no other choice.
> 
> This work is part of the Swan Queen Supernova Prostar challenge and (kind of, sort of) inspired by Regalducky's art. I hope I did the art some justice, even though I strayed pretty far. 
> 
> Last but certainly not least, a huge huge huge thank you to the awesomest people making this whole SQSN thing possible. The smoothest organized swanqueen event i've been a part of so far! I admire every single person involved!
> 
>  
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything, obviously.

The drive is the same. It always is. A blur of asphalt and green. Every Friday I drive down these same roads that become more and more deserted as I get closer to my destination. Every Sunday I retrace my path back to the city. It’s been a little over a year now. Mom tells me I shouldn’t, insists I don’t have to. She assures me she’s fine, but she hugs me a little too long, too tight, every time I arrive. Her words say she’s fine. Her hugs tell me the truth.  
  
She tries to keep busy. Buries herself in work. She even established somewhat of a friendship with grandma and grandpa. I guess it creates a bond if you have something in common. Even if that something is pain. Maybe especially if it’s pain. Misery loves company they say. Although I suspect that it’s more than that. Their past just prevents them from admitting it just yet.  
  
I pass the sign, welcoming me as always, and I slow the car a little just to take in the familiar surroundings of where I grew up. I love traveling. I like exploring new places. The city is okay. College is great, it really is, but there’s no place I feel as alive as I do right here. Maybe it’s the air with its ever-present magic , or maybe it’s just because this is home, but I feel a sense of belonging here that no other place can compare to. I think I might always eventually circle back to this town. Just like Ma did all those years ago. I’ll admit it wasn’t entirely voluntary but I’m convinced she would’ve eventually made it here on her own too.  
  
As I pull up to my house on Mifflin Street, I’m still remembering that time Ma brought me back to town. I remember begging her not to take me back to this house and claiming my mom was evil. Even back then Ma would defend her, as she would do many times after that, not just to me but to anyone else who’d need convincing. Times certainly changed since then, I think. Fondness and sadness both painting that memory an interesting mix of emotion.  
  
Right now, as my mom’s arms tighten around me and I squeeze back just as hard, the contrast with the halfhearted hug I gave her that night at age 10 is like night and day. I’m on the same front lawn in front of the same house, but this time I no longer have doubts about whether or not this mansion is home to me. Now, as I tower over her I’m not sure who’s holding who anymore but I decide we both need this, so I hold on.  
  


* * *

  
  
We enter the common room. We always find her in the same seat by the window in the far left corner. A nurse once told me she liked looking out over the water, and it really was a nice view, but I’m not sure she’s really seeing any of it at all. I bet she sees a lot of things, but none that we can see too. None that we would want to see either.  
  
I’m half a step behind Mom. I usually am when entering this wing in the hospital. Mom can’t help being drawn to her. She doesn’t see much other than her and so her step doesn’t falter as she approaches. I, on the other hand, have trouble keeping my eyes from roaming. The blank faces and the wild faces. The smiles that don’t reach eyes and the longing looks into nothingness. I catch people’s eyes. It’s always the same ones that look away and those that hold my gaze.  
  
I turn my attention back to who I’m here for as we slow to a stop in the corner.  
  
I watch Mom’s hand extend as if it has a life of its own. Ready to graze a shoulder, touch an arm. But at the last moment she changes her mind and lets it fall. She remembered the last time she tried that and I wince as I do too. Ma doesn’t always respond well to unexpected touch anymore. Not even when it’s Mom’s hand.  
  
“Emma,” Mom softly says.  
  
Ma’s back straightens a little as she hears her name. As she hears a voice. That voice.  
  
“Hi Ma,” I greet.  
  
She turns in her seat and looks from Mom to me. To anyone else it might look like she sees us for the first time in her life. But I see it. It looks like when a certain smell catches your attention in passing but before you can really put your finger on what it reminds you of, what time and place it transports you to, it’s gone. That’s what I see in her eyes. There’s a very faint flicker of recognition at the sound of our voices which morphs to confusion for a second as she tries to make sense of everything before settling on a blank expression. The ghost of a smile still on her lips. The ghost of memories likely still on her brain as she studies us.  
  
It used to feel as if I was punched in the gut during that first eye contact at my weekly visits. She looks like Ma, but at the same time she looks nothing like her. Like someone made a copy but forgot to add the one vital part that made her who she really was. They nailed the appearance but failed to add the personality that really makes a person that person.  The light that used to brighten her green eyes, the fire in them, seems so dull now. It would surprise me every time until I got used to it.  
  
But now, now I can focus on the fact that the light isn’t entirely gone.  
  
Her eyes linger on mom’s, like they always do, as if she might find all the answers there. She does that a lot. Search mom’s eyes. She did that in the past too, usually when things got hard or confusing. But even now, when I’m not convinced she really recognizes Mom, or me for that matter, she does that same thing.  
  
Mom holds her gaze with watery eyes. She always tears up, she can’t help it. I watch them. I watch how Mom holds her breath, biting her lip. Despite herself part of her is hoping today will be different.  
  
I hope with her.  
  
I know better. So does she.  
  
But we hope. Because that’s what we do.  
  
The only thing we can do.  
  
“Hi,” Ma whispers, uncertain but clear.  
  
Mom lets go of the air she had been holding as she smiles, a tear trickling down her cheek. I feel my own face be pulled in a similar expression. Days where she greets us are good days. They’re rare. But they’re good. So good.  
  
It had taken months for even that little word to pass her lips. In the beginning we would just sit with her. Mom and I would talk about our days, about movies we saw and books we read. We told her about every new dessert at Granny’s and that time Neal said his first curse word which made Snow nearly combust with rage and David choke on his own laughter. We talked about everything. Everything but That Day. Mom tried once. She tried to breech the subject. Out of everything we tried up to that point it was the only topic that got a reaction out of her.  
  
A shudder ran down my back as I remember it now. At first Ma didn’t say anything when Mom recounted the events. But her lip trembled and so Mom pushed. Hoping to maybe push her out of her daze. But she pushed too far.  
  
Ma’s scream will most likely never leave my memory. It was the only time I’ve seen her walk faster than the steady shuffle I’ve gotten used to. It was the only time I’ve heard her voice louder than a whisper. In a room that that was never quiet, you could hear a pin drop after those doors closed behind Ma that day.  
  
In the visits that followed we tried everything. I suggested playing cards. Mom suggested walks. I tried books. Mom tried drawing. Nothing happened for a long time. And then one day she said hi when we got there. Mom thinks it was a coincidence. That it could’ve been any other day. But I know it had something to do with the yellow sweater Mom was wearing. Ma has always loved yellow.  
  
And now Ma is greeting us with a faint smile. She can’t really grasp who we are but still feels this warmth in her chest at the sight of us and sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes she can hold onto that long enough to speak, to smile.  
  
Mom smiles back as she sinks onto the windowsill next to Ma. It’s automatic. They’re like magnets. It’s impossible to get away from each other without eventually ending up back together.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being a very inexperienced writer who's still learning on top of not being an english native, I love any and all feedback/tips/criticism I can get, so if you have the time, please leave me a word or two!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you still with me, THANK YOU!

Ma left once. Married. Happy.  
  
I never told Mom I heard her cry herself to sleep every evening for weeks. She thinks I never noticed but her sound muffling pillows and morning after make-up can only do so much.  
  
When Ma got engaged, I wasn’t shocked. It was bound to happen. Hook was an okay guy, I figured, and if she said yes then I had no reason not to roll with it. Except for the one, of course. But that reason had a mouth or her own and I knew better than to get in the middle of that.   
  
When Mom saw that ring it was as if heartbreak suddenly had a facial expression. Of course, being the master of disguise, she recovered fairly quickly. I still wonder if Ma saw. She always sees Mom. Really sees her, like no one ever bothered to. I’ve always wondered if maybe she was challenging Mom to stop her but Mom never did. Never thought she deserved to. She doesn’t take happy endings away anymore. Or at least none but her own.  
  
So Ma said yes and that’s how she became someone’s wife. For a while things were okay. Mom and Ma still walked me to the bus stop sometimes and we had weekly dinners, just the three of us. I spent a lot of time with either or both of them and it seemed to be almost enough. When I left for college, there were less and less reasons for Mom and Ma to meet up until one day Ma announced Hook was leaving and she would join him.  
  
She said the ocean was calling her husband and she was going to indulge him by sailing across the world for a while. She argued that she had always been a wanderer and was excited to go. They would eventually settle down somewhere, but who was she to stop him from chasing the waves he seemed to crave so much?   
  
She said she never had any one place to call home but I knew better. I saw it in her eyes when she looked at Mom. She thought she never had a home, because her home wasn’t a place.   
She said she wasn’t tied to any one spot though I think she had started growing roots a long time ago. Still, I kept silent.   
  
Come Spring Break, I watched them sail off toward the horizon from the docks and as they disappeared, so did Mom’s smile.  
  


* * *

  
  
15 months.   
  
That’s how long it took for Ma to come back home.   
  
The day after Ma returned was the first day since her departure that Mom finished work before 8pm.  
  
Their marriage didn’t last. Ma had wanted it to work out. She had tried so hard but in the end she couldn’t deny that perhaps he loved her in a way she could never love him. She blamed herself. Convinced she wasn’t capable of loving the way she should. She was wrong. She even became the Dark One once which should be more proof than any one person could need to show she was more than capable of loving. Love is sacrifice. Sacrifice is love.   
  
Every time he wanted more, she found herself wanting less. He mentioned wanting children and all she could think about was getting out. I learned most of all this by sitting at the top of the stairs when my moms thought I was asleep. Twenty-year-old college students on summer breaks don’t go to sleep at 10pm.   
  
The days went by and I returned to campus to start my third year. When Ma was away, I used to drive home a lot. But that year I didn’t come home as much as I did before. I didn’t have to make up reasons and excuses to tell friends just so I didn’t have to make plans with them over weekends. I knew Mom would have reasons to smile without me being there to make it happen.  
  
Life was good for a while. Ma told me they were really getting along and Mom said their friendship had never been stronger. I’ve always loved to read, gotten good at it over the years. I had no trouble reading between the lines of this particular story even if they didn’t want to tell me. Once I opened my eyes to it, I couldn’t not see it anymore.  
  
For the first time in my life I was glad I took that acting course in my freshman year because it took all I had to fake a surprised reaction when Ma sat me down to tell me she was going to ask Mom out.   
  
Needless to say I failed horribly at pulling off shock just like I failed horribly at that acting course. Ma said I was too much like my mother to get away with the poor acting job. Apparently we both wear our hearts on our sleeves, and even if we wear jackets over them Ma can easily tell when we’re lying. She says it’s her superpower but I’m pretty sure it only works on us.  
  
I never got much details on how their dates went and that may be for the best. They were my moms after all. But I noticed the changes they were so careful to be discreet about. The brushes of fingers. The lingering looks. The smiles. Excuses to be where the other was. Mom was cheerier than I ever remembered her being. Ma kept grinning a lot too.   
  
It felt big. Too big to dive in head first. They were easing me, but mostly themselves, into it and nothing had ever felt more natural. The holidays were the best I ever had. The best any of us ever had. For the first time, my family was whole. It was a little awkward still, mostly when grandma and grandpa were at the table too, but it felt like a beginning. It felt like a promise of a future none of us ever thought we could have.   
  
It didn’t last.   
  
_It was too good to be true._   
  
That’s what Mom had whispered into my shoulder when I held her after we found Ma at the end of That Day. It was the sound of a healing heart breaking all over again.     
  
It happened nearly a year after Ma came home. I was in class when grandpa called. The road seemed to stretch and stretch making it impossible to get home fast enough but I made it just in time to witness the first panic attack and to see nothing but fear in my birth mother’s eyes.   
  
It was grandma who dragged Mom out of that hospital room. There was no way she would’ve left on her own even if every single one of Ma’s sobs was another blow to her gut. Every look and sound one she would be dreaming of for days to come.  
  
Grandpa tried to fill me in on what happened but to this day I don’t know the specifics. I have been too afraid to bring it up with Mom. I’m scared she might not handle it well.   
  
I was told that Hook came back for her. He had spent the last year sailing across realms. He went back out on the water in hopes to leave his heartbreak on land. If he sailed far enough, he could forget. Except he never did.  
  
At some point he landed himself in a tavern, getting drunk and mingling with all sorts of figures that preferred to hide from daylight. I don’t know how he got his hands on that spell, but for magic that dark to land in his palm, he must’ve traded more than just gold.  
  
Everyone knows you can’t make someone love you with magic. But there’s always the few desperate enough to think there’s a way around that.  
  
In theory, it wasn’t a love spell. It was meant to make Ma forget why she didn’t love him and give him the opportunity to try and win her back. It was meant to evaporate the bad memories, the fights, the realizations. It was meant to give him a clean slate.  
  
It was foolish to think that the void left by what he erased wouldn’t be filled with other memories. His spell did more than just erase what he needed to be gone, it also repainted that blank canvas with new memories. Fake memories.  
  
All magic comes at a price.   
  
Ma was paying dearly.  
  
Of course, Hook payed too, in a way. Mom was on him the second she understood what he had done. Grandma and I found them on the Jolly Roger.  Hook’s beating, blackened heart in Mom’s raised fist. Pure unadulterated fury burning in her eyes as she squeezed her fingers tighter. It had taken every negotiating tactic we could think of to get her to not crush his heart to dust right on the spot.  
  
After what he had done, we all agreed that no place would be far enough. No distance between him and Ma could ever be big enough. Grandpa and Mom, as acting sheriff and mayor, met with the city council. As Hook was ruled unreliable and a direct danger to at least one Storybrooke resident, they came to the unanimous decision to banish him to another realm. They never told anyone which realm they had decided on and perhaps that’s for the better.  
  
All I know and care about is that he is no longer around nor coming back. Even so, his price will never compare to Ma’s.  
  
Ma ended up with what I can only imagine to be the worst collection of memories someone could have. I never knew Ma as a frightened person. She was never jumpy or easily startled. She went into things head first. Courage coursing through her blood. Right after the mind erasing, the simplest unexpected move or sound could have her in full blown panic. A door closing a little too loudly. Footsteps approaching a beat too quickly. A knife scratching a plate too sharply. Anything could send her spiraling in those first few weeks. There was no real telling what her triggers were or what they triggered exactly.  
  
The time right after the casting of that spell, I wasn’t allowed to see her very much.   
  
Mom barely let me come along on the brief visits Ma was allowed. Grandma and grandpa didn’t talk about her state very much either. I asked a lot of questions, tried to understand, but no one was willing to really offer me any answers. They tried to shield me from reality. Tried to let me hold on to the version of Ma I knew and loved. I also think that with me holding on to who she was, they thought they could too.   
  
I hated being kept out of the loop. I hated it when I was younger, and I hated it now. I also hated being treated like a child at 19. One day, after Mom had come home from an particularly bad visit, I decided I needed those answers more than to keep the fake sense of peace in my family. I couldn’t keep watching Mom coming apart at the seams without being able to help. I wanted, I needed, to help.   
  
That afternoon I went to the hospital on my own. I demanded to see her and when that didn’t work I vowed not to leave the waiting room until someone finally gave me some real answers. I waited around for about four hours before I realized no one was about to offer me anything. Every member of the staff on Ma’s floor had passed me at least five times by then and no one had even considered filling me in on anything.   
  
Still, I stayed. I’m stubborn like that. I’ve been told I got that from my mother. They never specified which one. I think I got it from both. I was about to call it a night when Paige showed up. She interns at the hospital as a nurse these days. It really suits her.  
  
She took me to some sort of supply closet and after explicitly telling me she was not at liberty to discuss any patient information, she told me Ma had had a bad day. Paige was the first to be completely honest about my mom’s current condition. There was no sugar coating and I was equally grateful she didn’t and scared for what I was about to hear.  
  
Paige was the one who told me they had Ma on sedatives 24/7. They were lowering the doses, testing how much reality she could handle at a time, but she hadn’t been completely off of them yet until that day. That morning had been the first one without meds. Paige had said Ma had done better than expected. Paige hadn’t seen the look in Mom’s eyes when she had returned from her daily visit that same morning.   
  
Better than expected was obviously meant to be taken relatively.   
  
In the weeks that followed, Ma was making good progress in the sense that she didn’t have as many anxiety attacks and she now managed short trips out of her room. Which also meant I got the see her more. There was next to no response from her towards me, but Paige told me that was a huge improvement over having her scamper away or freak out at the sight of a loved one.   
  
With every step forward Ma made, it was as if my family was able to breathe a little easier. Conversation became less strained. Hope was returning. Faith slowly restoring.   
  
One Thursday evening, when I came home from college a day early, I found Mom neck deep in her spell books. Caught red handed she couldn’t shut me out any longer. She admitted to having read and researched every single thing she could find over the past few weeks about all the possible spells Hook could’ve casted. She insisted she hadn’t found much concrete information but I heard what she wasn’t saying. She had found plenty. She always did when she researched magic. She was never without theories. She just hadn’t found anything that wasn’t terrible.  
  
With magic, Mom explained, no two spells were the same. Variables like the creator, the caster, the target, the time and the place gave a spell a uniqueness that could influence the effects in unforeseeable ways. Magic is never easy or straightforward.   
  
In conclusion, there was no real telling what exactly Hook had done. Mom hoped of course, that I would take that deflective answer and drop the subject, but I knew she was keeping things from me. I knew she had her theories. Educated guesses that proved to be mostly right in the past.   
  
And so I pressed on.    
  
Mom looked at me for a long time before she answered. Contemplating if I could handle it. Realizing I was not a little boy anymore. Wondering if she would be doing the right thing in burdening me with the heavy weight of knowledge I wasn’t going to be forgetting any time soon.   
  
And then she shared.   
  



	3. Chapter 3

Ma’s brain is corrupted by dark magic. Fake memories were instilled in her mind. Memories of pain. Of loss. Of hurt. Some abuse maybe. There could be tragic events. Trauma. Mom wasn’t sure if the curse created vivid images of horrific scenes that had never actually taken place or if it only went as far as planting only the emotions to go with memories that didn’t exist.  
  
Ma’s fought real demons in her life. She’ll always the many scars of her battles. The memories of those weighing her down. She had her weaker moments, understandably so. But up until That Day, she was always able to get up when being knocked down. She always walked with her back straight, despite the weight of her past pressing down on her shoulders.  
  
It was this spell that brought her to her knees like I had ever seen before.  
  
“I don’t know if the spell only creates fears,” Mom had said, “or if it plants memories of actual events that trigger those fears as well. For example, would the spell only give her an irrational fear of dogs or would she also suddenly have memories of being attacked by one?”  
  
Contrary to what I had been thinking up to that point, Mom believed her old memories could still be in there. The new ones are just stronger, clouding her own memories with the fake ones. She reasoned that since Hook didn’t practice magic outside of casting the one spell, he may not have been able to cast it in full force, leaving Ma’s own memories intact instead of obliterating them. The fake memories could have been added in the mix instead of replacing the old ones.  
  
Back then it was hard to believe my mother wasn’t gone. I had a couple brief visits to go on and so far even the Truest Believer had trouble keeping the faith. It’s not that I wasn’t still going to keep visiting. I still loved her just the same. But part of me was afraid she was never going to love me back like she used to.  
  
I could read that same fear off of Moms face after every visit where Ma didn’t respond. I could hear it in every quiet sob she thought I didn’t hear late at night. I could see it in the way she stared off into the garden during breakfasts and the hours she sat on that bench at the docks watching the waves.  
  
Now however, as my moms sit in the common room together, I can see it. I can believe it. The light in Ma’s eyes was never extinguished. It’s eclipsed. And the good thing about eclipses, is that they don’t last.  
  
Her fake memories have started to lose the sharp edges they used to have. The extremes have dulled to a kind of calm state of being. I imagine it as a fog rather than a thunder storm now.  
  
The hospital ran a couple tests too of course. We were told that even though she didn’t appear to be doing much physically, her brain was working over hours. MRI’s showed a lot of activity and even responses to pictures of familiar places and people. Emma is still in there.  
  
Part of Ma’s mind seems to always be searching. Like she’s always digging through the heavy stuff in her head trying to file things away. She’s trying to decide what’s real and what isn’t. Like she’s redefining her sanity. Piecing a puzzle back together without knowing what pieces should and shouldn’t go into the image.  
  
Every now and then she touches upon a feeling or sliver of a memory that she can tell isn’t like the others. Like it feels more real.  
  
I’ve seen it during visits too. It happens with me sometimes. She might perk up at the sound of my voice or the sight of me, like she did today.  
  
But mostly it’s Mom.  
  
She looks at Mom like nothing has ever felt more real. Her mind at its clearest. And so she stares. Hoping to hold on. To fully grasp the sensation and pull it out of the fog so she can examine it closer. I don’t think she’s been very successful with that so far. That should be enough proof that it asks a lot to focus, to strain like that.  
  
It’s hard.  
  
So hard.  
  
But not impossible. 

* * *

  
The sun is out, it’s relatively warm and I figure it is a good day for some air. I suggest we go for a walk. It is a relatively new privilege for Ma to be allowed to go out on walks. Her mental condition has been stable enough to be without direct medical supervision for a while now. Although, I’m pretty sure Mom’s magic has something to do with things too.  
  
There is no way Mom would let anything bad happen to her. Or me.  
  
We could be back in the hospital in a heartbeat. Ma could be stopped, paralyzed, frozen, in any act before anything could get out of hand. Not that that happened anymore really.  
  
Fog. No storms.  
  


* * *

  
  
We usually stay on the hospital grounds and the park right next to it. Peaceful and quiet. But today seems like a good day for a bit more adventure. Encouraged by the bright sunlight and perhaps the smile Ma had given us on arrival, we stray a little farther.  
  
Ma comes quietly. She keeps looking around with various emotions flashing over her features. Some too quick to read well but others obvious. Recognition. Confusion. Wonder. Doubt.  
  
A dog barks and Ma flinches a little at the sound. We both eye her closely. I guess being overly protective kind of runs in our family.  
  
A second later the dog comes into view from behind a tree and I recognize him as Bruno, Ashley’s dog.  
  
It doesn’t take long before Mister Herman shows up as well. Leash in hand and very much out of breath, he skids to a halt in front of us. An apology ready to spill from his mouth the second he has the air to verbalize it.  
  
A couple years ago Mitchell Herman wouldn’t even allow his son to see Ashley, even went as far as getting Mister Gold to take Alexandra away. Who would’ve thought he would be walking his daughter in law’s dog and frequently babysitting his granddaughter years later. It hadn’t happened overnight but their relationships had mended. Theirs was a story with a happy ending.  
  
It seems like Mister Herman only now registers who he ran into. He straightened his back as his eyes grew a little softer.  
  
“Hi Regina,” he says warmly.  
  
“Mitchell,” Mom greets in return, her voice not mimicking his warmth.  
  
Belle had told me Mister Herman had asked Mom out once. You wouldn’t believe how much gossip you hear at a small town library. There aren’t many in Storybrooke who know more about the people than she does. She’s always full of stories, fictional and real.  
  
The idea of them together wasn’t all that crazy, except for the fact that she’s my mom, obviously. They were kind of around the same age. Both single. Both lived alone. Both from the same realm where they used to be royalty. He was nice enough too.  
  
Mom hadn’t even considered it.  
  
I’m not surprised.  
  
Mom’s heart isn’t available. It already belongs to someone else. It always will.  
  
Even if it will take forever for the other to remember.  
  
Mom will be right there waiting. There’s nothing else for her to do. No other place for her to be.  
  


* * *

  
  
We round a corner and the ocean comes into view. Drawn by the sound of the waves we walk closer. Our feet thump softly on the wooden dock as we make our way to one of the benches.  
  
The bench.  
  
The one Mom always sits on.  
  
We slow to a halt in front of it. I don’t know why she always picks that one, as the entire dock is lined with places to sit, but it’s always here.  
  
Ma stands beside her. I can almost see the wheels in her head turning. She looks from the bench to Mom, connecting dots. Her lips slowly part as if she’s about to say something and we wait with bated breath for words to come. Her brow furrows in concentration as she’s desperately trying to hold on to whatever connection just made its way to the front of her mind.  
  
It’s no more than a whisper and nearly impossible to hear over the waves but we both caught it.  
  
“Our bench?”  
  
Mom gasps, her eyes watering as she nods. They share a long look and I can feel the energy passing between them, For a moment, Ma is really here.  
  
Mom lowers herself to the wooden seat and then slowly extends a hand to Ma.  
  
A risk.  
  
An invitation.  
  
“Sit with me?” Mom asks softly. A small request and yet so much to ask.  
  
Ma hesitates. I can tell she has trouble processing the question.  
  
She blinks.  
  
Then blinks again.  
  
I’m preparing for the worst. I’m ready for her to bolt. To slip back into oblivion. To not respond at all. I’m ready to catch Mom if Ma does.  
  
And then the unexpected happens. Ma’s hand is reaching, slipping into the offered one with a certainty I hadn’t seen in her movements for a very long time. She sinks down onto the bench next to my other mom.  
  
Ma shifts and I mistake it for discomfort until I notice their fingers intertwining. It’s one of the most natural acts I’ve ever seen. To me, there is absolutely no question about it. These two were made for each other. Two sides of the same coin.  
  
I sit down on Ma’s other side.  
  
If only just for a moment, for the first time in what feels like forever, we’re whole.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writers and artists spent months creating the fics and art you enjoy - it would mean the world to them if you commented to tell them what you liked! The SQSupernova team is also sponsoring a contest for commenters, and you can find out more [here](http://sqsupernova.tumblr.com/post/164792441694/announcing-the-sqsn-comments-contest-a-reward-for).


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